This photograph is fom John's collection.
The image is taken looking south east over Coulsdon.
St Andrews church is in
the foreground.

The smoke and fire you
can see are thought to
have been the result of an
air raid on Kenley
Aerodrome.

In Croydon
5000 people were killed or injured
and 60,000 houses were damaged
during air raids in World War Two.

John Gent

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John Gent

John lived in South Norwood.
This is his story from the first
bombing raid on Croydon Aerodrome.
It is read by an actor.

"Our shelter was incomplete in August 1940
and on the 15th,
my friend Tony Moss had come to tea.
We were playing in the front room
with a large tin plate model bus
when the sound of some
approaching aircraft was heard.

I said to Tony that I was going to look at
them but he said he would not bother.
As I tried the handle of the door
my mother was turning it in the opposite direction.

"Quick John, they're Germans!"
she said. No alert had sounded.
We rushed into the back room,
and down the ladder into the shelter,
as we heard explosions in the distance.
As there was as yet nowhere to sit in
the shelter, we removed the
metal sheet and went
along the escape passage to the Fosketts
at number 306 and waited
until the attack on Croydon airport was over.

Tony lived in Wharncliffe Gardens,
further up South Norwood Hill.
Dad was in a reserved occupation
and had limited use of a car.

So took Tony home and then
went on with my mother and I to
Beulah Spa where we had a grandstand view down the spa hill of the airport and the resultant smoke arising from the bombing.
Which it later transpired had claimed the lives of 62 people, 37 of them injured seriously and 137 less so.
180 people were made homeless.
This was the first bad air raid
of the war on the London area.

From the back of our house we looked
across to the North Downs. Biggin Hill,
and Kenley airfields were about
7 miles away to the south
and Croydon was about 4 miles to the south west.

Over the next few months, the
bright blue sky was streaked with vapour trails. The silvery specks of aircrafts glistened in the sun.
And puffs of smoke from gun fire appeared as the
Battle of Britain raged overhead.
In between the aerial dogfights and air raids, we school boys eagerly hunted for shrapnel and cartridge cases."

John the collector

John started collecting postcards
when he was sent one of the
Crystal Palace by a neighbour for
his fourth birthday in 1936.
This began a lifelong love of postcard
and photograph collecting.

John's interest in local history
was stimulated by his history teacher
at school and by attending lectures
at the local library.
By the 1950s John focused
on collecting postcards of local views.

His hobby allowed him to
accumulate a collection of around
15,000 images.

Find out more

To see more historic photographs
visit the Research Room.

The Research Room is on the
lower ground floor of the Clocktower.
It is open Tuesday-Saturday
10:30am-5pm.